Future of Roundup Lawsuits Over Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma To Be Decided by U.S. Supreme Court

Some say Bayer may attempt to force future Roundup settlement negotiations into the U.S. bankruptcy system, if its third bid for immunity before the Supreme Court fails.

The highest court in the country has agreed to hear arguments in April 2026, to decide whether thousands of Roundup non-Hodgkins lymphoma lawsuits are preempted by federal law, since environmental regulators have not required the manufacturer to place cancer warnings on the widely used weedkiller.

Over the last several years, Bayer and its Monsanto subsidiary have faced more than 120,000 product liability lawsuits over the failure to warn about the cancer risks linked to Roundup exposure, each alleging that the active ingredient in the herbicide may cause users to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and other forms of cancer.

Although the manufacturer already agreed to pay more than $10 billion in Roundup settlements to resolve claims, the company continues to face thousands of active lawsuits that are moving forward through the U.S. court system. Simultaneously, a steady stream of new claims continue to be brought by former Roundup users, who often develop cancer from the weedkiller years later.

Bayer has focused much of its defense strategy in recent years on attempting to convince U.S. courts that it should be immune from Roundup failure-to-warn lawsuits, based on federal preemption, arguing that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would not have approved more stringent label warnings for the glyphosate-based weedkiller. The company has also sought immunity from several states’ legislatures, with limited success.

On January16, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order list (PDF) announcing it has granted a writ of certiorari to Monsanto and its parent company, Bayer, agreeing to consider an appeal fied in April 2025, stemming from an October 2023 verdict that awarded $1.25 million in damages to a consumer.

“The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted limited to the following Question: Whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts a label-based failure-to-warn claim where EPA has not required the warning.”

– U.S. Supreme Court

According to a Bayer press release issued on the same day, the Court will hear arguments on the case, Monsanto v. Durnell, in April. The company indicated that it expects a ruling by the end of the 2026 Supreme Court session, which is in June.

The original plaintiff, John Durnell, was awarded $1.25 million in damages after a trial in October 2023. At trial, Durnell indicated he began using Roundup in 1996, and was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma several years later.

The Missouri Supreme Court rejected an appeal of the Roundup case in February 2025. The Supreme Court has been expected to hear the case since last July, when it sent an invitation to the Solicitor General of the United States to weigh in on the issue.

This is the manufacturers’ third attempt at seeking federal protection from repeated verdicts where juries have sought to punish Bayer and Monsanto for recklessly endangering consumers by failing to warn them of potential Roundup cancer risks.

The Supreme Court has already rejected Bayer’s Roundup appeals twice before. The company petitioned the Court to review another Roundup trial defeat, involving an $87 million verdict awarded to a California couple, Alva and Alberta Pilliod in May 2019. However, the Supreme Court refused to review the case in June 2022. 

This followed a previous refusal to review another Roundup appeal in March 2019. The Court provided no comment about the reasons why the petitions were rejected in either case, which is not uncommon.

Roundup Lawsuit Immunity Also Sought in States

Beyond its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Bayer and Monsanto have pursued legislative relief at the state level as they face mounting Roundup litigation. The companies have urged lawmakers to pass measures granting immunity from future Roundup lawsuits, arguing that federal regulatory approval should shield them from liability. Those efforts have already resulted in liability protections in Georgia and North Carolina, with similar proposals under consideration in several other states.

However, some reports indicate that if the state and federal efforts to seek immunity fail, Bayer is considering seeking liability protection for Monsanto through the U.S. bankruptcy process, even though the company has billions of funds on hand to deal with the litigation.

To cut off the potential for future claims, Bayer also announced that it would reformulate Roundup in 2021, with plans to remove the active ingredient glyphosate from consumer versions of the weedkiller. However, without additional settlements, the company is likely to continue facing new lawsuits for years, as former users develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma following use of the old Roundup formulations.

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